Merry Christmas!

This was our first Christmas as a five-some, and while the work was worth it, it was WORK.

We stayed up very late the night before finishing off presents and making the home ready for Santa. Patrick and Will said their goodbyes to Will's elf on the shelf. Finally, the cookies were ready, the presents were under the tree and we got ready to see the kids' reactions.

Will only got as far as the stockings and innocently was happy enough with what he found there. Only when he chased a toy across the room did he notice everything under the tree. The look on his face was priceless.

We spent the entire morning opening stockings, presents from Santa and presents from our family. It was a great excuse to spend the morning in our pajamas.

Patti's parents arrived Christmas afternoon bearing even more gifts for the kids. It was great fun watching them explore each new thing - especially the noisy ones. Contrary to the week leading up to Christmas, Will was patient, loving and gentle.

Maggie was into EVERYTHING and Stella was fighting a fever so the night was interesting. Poor Stella was miserable (but not crying). She sat and watched the night unfold around her. Maggie was trying to get into everything, pulling herself up next to presents, and wanting to see what Will was doing.

It was a VERY merry Christmas!

Still alive

We've been too sick or tired (or sick and tired of each other) to post lately but here's a general update heading into the Christmas weekend. Will is doing OK with the potty training - averaging one accident a day (always when Patrick is at work). He won't let our sitter change him after accidents either, so that's a problem. Will has been more or less a terror this week for Patti - not listening, not picking up anything, aggressively taking his toys away from the girls, and then there was the biting incident. Stella was in her exersaucer and Will walked up and bit her hand. He didn't break the skin but you could see every one of his teeth hours and hours later.

Stella has been fighting a cold all week (we all have but her's remains). Because of that or not, she's been waking up every few hours during the night. Maggie often sleeps through it, but not always.

The five of us "picked out" our Christmas tree last Saturday and Will had lots of fun racing through the trees.

Because the whole minivan was full of Carey's we had to tie our tiny tree to the roof. All that room and we can't even fit a little tree in the van...

Stella and Maggie are getting more and more mobile by the minute. They still prefer the Navy Seal style shimmy across the floor, but we catch them on all fours from time to time. They love to scoot over to whatever Will is doing - much to his dismay. We're already challenged in keeping them away from things.

Stella has even been pulling herself up once she reaches something. She likes to kneel but she'll sometimes stand all the way up for a spell.

Will's potty-training: Day Three

Today was another success (only one real accident in three days) so Will graduated up to big-boy underpants! We fully expect some set-backs this week when someone isn't dedicated to sprinting upstairs with Will every hour, but he is so proud of himself that we think he's good "to go" (hee hee).

Will and Patrick spent some more quality time in Will's room today until Will got used to pulling his underwear up and down quickly. We're not sure who enjoyed the three days together more.

Will "helped" Bonnie make him this cake earlier today. He wasn't in underwear yet so imagine the watching that went into mixing and baking this cake...